They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (Acts 2:42)
Expanded Passage: Acts 2:42-43
Every Sunday my mother woke early to make pancakes and bacon and prepare the roast and potatoes that would slowly cook while we worshiped with our small country church. I can still smell the coffee and the savory air of those mornings. Sundays were full of food, family, worship, and rest. My grandparents and other members of our church would join us for these blessed Sunday dinners.
Acts 2 provides us with a beautiful picture of the heart of the church: devotion to the stories and teachings of Christ, to sharing a meal together, and to prayer. The church described in Acts 2 is the church in its purest form. A gathered assembly of believers who worshiped together, prayed together, and shared sustenance with one another. The breaking of bread calls back to the Last Supper and the sacrifice of Christ’s own body on the cross. The sacramental nature of the breaking of bread also imagines the coming together of a diverse community as one family, united at the table of our Lord.
The Sunday dinners I enjoyed as a child were not separate from the morning worship gathering, but rather extensions of that worship. This week, embody the spirit of the early church and experience the sacredness of a shared meal.
Join together as the church at the table of our Lord.
Mark Moore is an associate professor of theology at Jessup University (CA) and an associate pastor at Faith Legacy Church in Sacramento, California.
© 2025 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
